Once Burned (Task Force Eagle) (5 page)

A few minutes later, the chief sent for her.

“Sorry to keep you waitin’, dear.” Norman Galt’s
Down-East accent turned the Maine courtesy into
deah
. One of the deep
creases in his chiseled face winked into a dimple as he smiled. “I was on the
phone with M.C.U. That’s the state police Major Crimes Unit. Doesn’t pay to cut
those boys short.”

“I understand.” She took the straight chair by his
worn wooden desk. Rich coffee aroma rose from the mug in his hand. On it were
the words,
#1 Grampy.
File cabinets and crowded shelves spoke of
mountains of red tape, but certificates and photos on the walls showed his
dedication. He offered coffee but she refused. Too painful to hold a cup.

“How’re you doing today?”

“Not too bad.” Her palms stung like hell and every
muscle in her body ached like she’d been beaten with a mallet. A prescription
allowed her to sleep through the night—without nightmares—but today she was
sticking to ibuprofen. She needed to stay sharp.

“Devil’s Elbow.” He shook his head. “You were lucky to
make it out of that car.”

“Lucky Jake happened along.” While Galt rattled on
about the dangers of coastal roads, she nodded politely.

Warmth suffused her as she recalled how Jake had saved
her life. His embrace meant nothing. He was only being kind. That he’d stuck by
her at the hospital also meant nothing. Like any man, he couldn’t be counted on
long-term. She did need his help. What if someone really did cause Gail’s
death? And what if they were coming after her now? The questions chased circles
in her belly like the nausea she’d felt last night seeing her hands leaking
blood.

She noticed Galt had paused. “About my car, have they
towed it out of the water?”

“Ayuh. Quite a chore too. A crane hauled it off the
rocks at low tide this morning.” He smoothed his graying hair with one hand. He
then reached to a shelf behind his desk for a sealed plastic bag. “Got this
out. Probably ruined.”

“Thanks.” She accepted her soggy canvas handbag with
careful fingers. She had some cash at the house but the bag contained her
driver’s license, credit cards, and checkbook. At least the plastic would be
usable. “Did you get samples of the truck’s paint from my car?”

“Car’s all stove up, wicked. Totaled, I’d say. But we
didn’t find any foreign paint.”

She gaped at him. “How can that be? He hit me twice.”

He shook his head. “Possible the rocks scraped it off.
You sure you don’t know the color? Or the make?”

“Just a dark pickup. An oversize one, I think.” She
sighed, but brightened when an idea struck her. “The truck should have dents,
maybe white paint from my car.”

“I have my sergeant checking into it.” He folded his
hands on the desk, and his skeptical gaze flickered to her before he looked
away. “You insist the driver hit you on purpose?”

A pang at his skepticism stabbed her chest. She
steadied her voice. “His action was deliberate. Maybe the same person who
burned that poor little cat.”

“Seems doubtful. What’s the connection?”

She twisted in her seat and crossed her legs. “Could
be something to do with the fire that killed my sister and injured me.”

A frown furrowed the chief’s forehead. “I was an
officer back then. First one on the scene along with the fire department.
Terrible tragedy. This town hasn’t had such a deadly fire since. Investigator
had a hard time with that one, although in the end he pegged it an accident.
Tough case for Frank Tyson. He retired afterward.”

Ah, she remembered an investigator questioning her,
but while she was drugged and grieving. And now she had the name that wasn’t in
the clippings.
Tyson
. “I’m sure you were in the loop. Do you have copies
of the reports?”

Galt straightened, his expression cool, blank. “The
fire marshal kept this office apprised of progress, but I have no reports.”

Lani scooted forward on her chair. She had to make him
understand. “I have reason to suspect the fire wasn’t an accident. Arson would
mean my sister was murdered. Maybe someone’s afraid I’ll find the truth. The
flaming dollhouse and the burnt cat were warnings. Now someone has tried to
kill me.”

“The cat thing’s a right nasty business, I grant you.
But I can’t see the crash your way. Both you and Jake Wescott saw an
out-of-control pickup on that curve. Maybe that driver caused you to skid off
the road and then your car rolled over the cliff. My department will try to
find the truck and determine what happened.”

His tone of voice said he doubted her story. Heat
crawled up her neck. She’d curl her hands into fists if they didn’t hurt so
damn much. “
I
know what happened was no accident.”

“Maybe somebody’s threatening you. Maybe not. I’ll
give the fire marshal’s office a call. See what they say. I doubt they’ll see
matters any different than I do. You’d be wise to lock your doors from now on
and let us handle it.”

She went still. Her pulse rattled. “Is that a warning?”

He flattened his palms on the desk. “Take it that way
if it’ll keep you out of trouble.”

“Maybe a deliberate attack on me will get the fire
investigators’ attention.” It sure as hell didn’t have Galt’s.

He shook his head, smoothed his mustache. “Too
nebulous. They’d jump in if you had
real
evidence. As I understand it,
you don’t remember much of anything about the fire.”

What she remembered and what she’d dreamed in the haze
of pain swirled in her mind like soured cotton candy. She raised her chin. “That
was
true.”

His eyebrows shot north. “I’d like to know if you
remember something, anything at all.”

“Not your case, is it, Chief Galt? It’s the state fire
marshal’s office I should tell.”

Chapter 5

When Lani didn’t see Jake’s blue SUV in the drive of
his grandmother’s house, her shoulders drooped. The walk from the police
station was less than a mile, but her sore body felt like she’d just hiked the
Knife Edge of Mount Katahdin. Backwards. But, whoo hoo, here came the man as if
she’d conjured him. Maybe she was psychic. Then again, a psychic would have
prevented the fire or run into the barn in time to save Gail. She rubbed her
chest with the back of one hand.

“Hey, Lani,” Jake called as he exited the vehicle. “You
come to make fun of my amateur carpentry?”

He looked good in well-worn jeans and a blue oxford
shirt that matched his eyes. No harm in looking. She’d looked often enough when
they were younger.

“I didn’t, but thanks for the warning. I need someone
to do repairs at the farm, but I’ll cross your name off my list.”

They climbed the three porch steps, weathered and
sagging from generations of running children. He opened the door and waved her
inside. “For now, I’m doing mostly demolition. My specialty.”

The sun-washed scent of his cotton shirt and a faint
trace of spicy aftershave caught her off guard. Shaking off the impact, she
filed past him into the bungalow’s living room. Piles of jagged plaster and
lath, a sledge hammer and power tools, and black trash bags filled to bursting
lay about.

“Whoa, has Dragon Harbor had a tornado I don’t know
about?”

He laughed, the first time she’d heard his rich voice
in full force. He used to laugh all the time. They all did.

“Told you. Demolition. Too much of the lath and plaster
is mouse-eaten and mildewed from roof leaks. All of it has to go. Hank had the
roof done so all’s dry now. New drywall is next. A learning experience.”

“So’s driving my car off a cliff. Don’t think I want
to give either one a try. Kudos to you for having the guts. The farmhouse doesn’t
need nearly as much.”

He gestured for her to follow him toward the kitchen. “We
can sit on the back porch. I haven’t messed it up too bad. I want to talk to
you anyway.”

“You said last night you were headed to the farm.
Because you wanted to talk to me?”

He didn’t answer her, but stopped in the kitchen to
snatch a couple of colas from the ancient fridge.

She shook her head and held up her bandaged hands. “I’ll
pass unless you have a straw. Or maybe you want to hold the can up to my mouth.”

The lines around his eyes tightened in embarrassment.
He gave her a crooked grin. “My bad. I wasn’t thinking. No straws, and I wouldn’t
trust me not to spill soda on you.”

Scattered around the screened porch were a padded
wicker loveseat, some Adirondack chairs, a stack of packing boxes, and a bench.

Gesturing for her to take the loveseat, he paced,
regarding her with enough intensity to see through her bones. “Just wanted to
make sure you were all right.”

“Lucky for me you tried. I wouldn’t be sitting here
otherwise. You’d think after all these years, I’d be over my fire phobia.
Post-traumatic stress.”

He shifted one shoulder in an offhand shrug. “PTSD’s a
hard thing to shake. Even with counseling.”

“I’ve had plenty of that, believe me.” She stopped
there. More, like descriptions of her nightmares, would be TMI. She looked out
over a freshly mowed backyard with overgrown shrubbery—lilac bushes, a row of
rhododendrons, others she didn’t recognize. The scent of late lilacs drifted on
the light breeze.

“There’s another reason I wanted to talk to you,” he
said. “Something you don’t know about the night of the fire. Something I’ve
regretted every day since.”

The pain on his face made the breath clog in her chest.
She forced herself to inhale slowly. Keeping her sore hands still in her lap
took effort. “Regret. About what?”

He swigged down some of his soda and closed the
distance between them. The force of his emotion reached out to her like the
heat of his body. He dropped into the seat beside her as if he could no longer
stand and rubbed his left thigh.

His aquamarine eyes bored into hers. “Gail was
different that night. Edgy and jittery, like she wanted me to leave. We’d been
having problems.”

“Like what?”

“Broken dates. Rants about how she felt smothered. We
used to have great talks, about everything—college, sports, our dreams. But for
weeks before the fire, she was quiet a lot. Not sad, just distant. Other times
she was almost manic.”

“I noticed her moods too,” Lani said. “Dreamy. And
sometimes giddy. Or bitter. Gail was always moody but this was more. I called
her on it, but she wouldn’t open up.”

“And there’s something else you should know. Gail didn’t
dump me that night.
I
broke up with
her
.” He drove fingers
through his hair.

Lani shook her head. Jake had no reason to lie about
it. “What? Because of the moods?”

He stared out the screening as if seeing a replay of
that night. “I asked about another guy. She shrugged off the question. She
called earlier and broke our date. Said she wanted a quiet evening. Another in
a string of lame excuses. I went over anyway. Never got past the driveway. Told
her if she didn’t want me around, we were done. I didn’t need the hassle.”

“She came inside saying she’d dumped
you
.” She’d
also called him boring. It was nuts. He’d always made Lani laugh, was fun to be
with. “And then?”

“I drove around in the truck—used to be Dad’s—for a
long time. An hour or more. Ended up at Todd Hokkanen’s house, his parents’
place on Ridge Road. The guys had a poker game going. I played cards about
twenty minutes or a half hour before we heard the sirens.”

She dragged her eyes from his tortured ones while she
got her mind around this new reality. “So what’s your regret?” Although she
could guess.

He shifted in his seat, rubbed his thigh. “Don’t you
see? If I hadn’t left her that night, she might still be alive. And you—”

“Wouldn’t have been burned. We’ve been through this.
Spare me the pity party, Wescott. I should’ve saved her but I was too late.”

“I should’ve made an effort to get at what was going
on with her.”

“What
was
going on with Gail? I don’t know
either.”

Jake’s cheeks flushed red and as he swallowed, his
Adam’s-apple jumped a mile. “There’s something you don’t know. Gail had sex
with someone that night.”

She must look like she’d been socked with a
fresh-caught halibut. Working with wily teenagers had taught her most people
didn’t lie well. She watched him for signs of dissembling. “With you?”

“Not me. Sure as hell not after that argument. The
report says apparently consensual sex, not forced. Traces of condom lubricant
but not enough DNA to trace. Dammit, there
was
another guy. She lied.
Son
of a bitch
.” He shot his gaze upward, blinking, as if fighting for control.

He’d been a victim of the arson too. The fire had
snuffed out that carefree guy. A sad note among many. She sank back against the
wicker. “That explains my vague memory of someone—the investigator—asking me
about Gail having sex.”

“He asked me too, but I told him we had an argument
and I left.”

“I’ll bet what’s left of Birch Brook Farm that fire
was no accident. The guy she had sex with started the fire. Did he kill her and
use the fire to cover up his crime?”

In the backyard, a seagull landed on the gas grill. It
gazed around with its beady eyes as if waiting for Jake’s response to her
statement. In the neighbor’s yard, a dog barked, and the gull took off.

Jake pondered his next words carefully. He didn’t want
Lani haring off into more danger than she already had. “Let’s not leap over the
Grand Canyon to that conclusion. But I’ve found enough discrepancies that I
believe the case should be reopened. Looks like the fire investigator started
out thinking arson was a possibility. Why the final report turned a one-eighty
to accidental fire, I’d like to know.”

“I was going to Augusta to file a request for the
investigator’s report but—” As if realization struck, she held up her bandaged
hands and sat up straighter. “Wait. Sounds like you actually have reports
and
notes.”

“Some of the case files, yeah. Departmental courtesy.
I’m waiting for the rest.” He placed a hand on her forearm. Gingerly, taking
care not to hurt her. He felt her tense before relaxing a fraction. “Be
careful, Lani. The truck last night could be an accident but—”

“I told you; it was no accident.” She heaved a long
sigh. “Okay, if I want your cooperation, I need to level. There was another
incident three days before the burnt cat. First I went along with the police
chief’s conclusion it was teenagers, but no more.”

“Incident? Not an overt attack, you mean.”

“More along the line of threat. I woke up to find a
doll house burning on the front lawn—a big homemade, wooden one, the size of a
dog house. The officer who came suggested bored teenagers. Everyone local knows
about the Cameron fire, he said, but he’d look into it. Chief Galt knows about
both dirty tricks but apparently the officer who came Friday didn’t.”

“Damn, both seem like twisted teen pranks, cruel ones.
But damned sophomoric for a believable threat.” He scraped knuckles along his
jaw.

“If not kids, maybe calculated to look like pranks but
created to scare me. Someone sees me as the weak link. The surviving sister,
emotionally fragile, easily frightened.”

He shook his head. “Frightened, yeah, and you should
be. But if I the woman I see now is the same Lani Cameron I used to know, not
easily frightened
away
.”

She smiled. “My apologies to your mom, who ruled a
tight ship, but the current D Harbor librarian’s volunteers could give lessons
to the online social networking sites. As soon as I followed your lead with the
old news stories, word spread faster than 4G around the peninsula.”

“Delinquents, maybe.” He had his doubts. “But not the
ramming on Devil’s Elbow.”

“Exactly.” She tilted her head, her smile waning to
something more serious. “I did some other research on the Internet. Found a
news story in a New Hampshire paper. An ATF agent was killed and another
wounded in the leg during a search of a suspected arms smuggling dump. The
wounded agent was Jacob Wescott. Fixing this house is only one reason you’re
here. Recovery’s the other.”

“You’re right, but that’s no secret.” He clasped her
hand and placed it gently on his left thigh, on the hard ridge of scar tissue. “I
have scars, Lani. Just where you don’t see. I lost a friend in that explosion.
I don’t want to worry about
you
too.”

“I’m already in this. Like you said, they can scare me
but they can’t scare me away. Together is more efficient. Safer, and we can
help each other. I’m good at research. Case in point, I’m waiting for a call
back from two of the reporters. We both need answers, to know if what we
suspect is true.”

He slugged down the rest of his cola. Watching her, he
ran his tongue around his teeth. He set his empty can on the floor beside the
wicker seat. “No, I won’t have you help me investigate. I can do my own
research or hire somebody.” He clamped his mouth into a tight line and drew a
deep breath. “I told you I’d share anything I find out. What you can do is work
with me to try to remember.”

She huffed. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You said you had counseling. What about hypnosis?”

Lani shot off the wicker seat, wincing at the pull in
muscles that had to be sore as hell. “Hypnosis, what a joke! I tried
hypnotherapy a couple times, for the nightmares. The damn therapist couldn’t
take me under. I stayed just as alert as I am now.” She stalked into the house.

“There must be a way.” He followed her into the
shambles of the living room.

She stopped and rounded on him. “And that was my plan.
To find the facts of what happened that night. What do they say? The truth
shall set you free?’

“Lani, come on.”

“But no, I’m supposed to sit with my bandaged hands in
my lap? Not gonna happen. I can’t wait for you to—” she made air quotes with
her bandaged hands “—share. When they find my cold, dead body by the side of
the road, see how that hits your conscience.”

He laughed, but without humor. “Whoa, you play dirty.”

She marched out the door. “If you change your mind,
you know where I am. Then I’ll be happy to
share
with you what I find
out—from
my
sources.”